Chances are you've already heard about the MARK MCGRATH AND FRIENDS CRUISE, the most talked-about maritime disaster of the 21st century. For prices starting at $649, you'll get three days on a big boat with frosty-tipped Sugar Ray heartthrob Mark McGrath and his handpicked lineup of shameful junior high cassette purchases:

CARNIVAL IMAGINATION TO HOST "MARK MCGRATH AND FRIENDS" MUSIC THEME CRUISE IN OCTOBER 2013

Joining McGrath and Sugar Ray for the cruise is an all-star lineup that includes popular bands such as Smash Mouth, Gin Blossoms, Cracker, Spin Doctors, Vertical Horizon, the Verve Pipe, and Marcy Playground, along with special acoustic performances by Ed Roland of Collective Soul and Ed Kowalczyk of Live.

Of course, I solemnly promise to do everything in my extremely limited power to somehow get on this cruise without paying for it.

A brief anecdote: I am a liar; I constantly lie to my friends and loved ones for my own amusement (and occasionally theirs, I hope). Therefore, it wasn't a huge surprise that my long-suffering girlfriend thought I was making the whole thing up when I told her about this cruise — it's exactly the sort of ridiculous thing I'd lie about, and come on, Spin Doctors? You've gotta be kidding me. But to prove it was for real, I showed her the official cruise website. She still thought I was making it up. She thought I actually registered the domain "markmcgrathandfriendscruise.com" and made an entire fake website just to fuck with her.

But as rock cruises go, this is actually one of the better — and cheaper — ones. For example, you could also book passage on the fifth (!) NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK CRUISE, which boasts the most defeated marketing copy in theme-cruise history. Behold, the actual opening text crawl of the NKOTB Cruise promo video: "After years of success/failure is always inevitable/nothing good lasts forever and every party must end/but AGAINST ALL ODDS . . . /OUR PARTY CONTINUES!" And stay tuned for the 2014 NKOTB Death Is Certain Tour, and the NKOTB Your Parents Are Getting Divorced New Year's Eve Bash. Head to nkotb.com/cruise for all the deets; prices for passage aboard the USS Inevitable Failure start at $899.

Or you could rock out with your hosts Sister Hazel on the ROCK BOAT XIII (charmingly branded as "lucky XIII" by the ominously fate-tempting Rock Boat website). Over a dozen acts are booked, including, uh, Sister Hazel, Scars on 45, a bunch of shit I've never heard of . . . and hippie-swaying dork-rock legends Rusted Root! Listed last on the artists page, perhaps evidence of a last-minute cancellation, is "24 Hour Soft Serve," which sounds way better than all of the above bands combined. Visit therockboat.com to book your trip; a double-occupancy room will run you $850, which is actually a bargain if you eat more than $850 worth of late-night ice cream.

Bad news: the 70,000TONS OF METAL cruise will already be at sea by the time you read this. This year's version of the legendary hard-rock voyage includes Helloween, Kreator, Lacuna Coil, and Lizzy Borden.

THE BIG HURT: DIVING IN THE PR DUMPSTER | February 26, 2013 I've been dumpster diving in the PR bin, the rankest receptacle of music industry waste, and I've come up with a dripping fistful of the month's hottest garbage.

THE BIG HURT: LEANIN' WITH BIEBS | February 20, 2013 Bieber was allegedly photographed sipping something from a double Styrofoam cup, in close proximity to a big bottle of codeine cough syrup. This can only add up to one thing: lean . That purple drank, the laudanum of Screw, the deadly nectar of Pimp C.